It is known to provide for data communication between and amongst multi-media devices, which are installed, for example, in a residential or commercial building, by means of a communications network. The multi-media devices might, for example, include Network Attached Storage (NAS), a Home Gateway (HGW), a Personal Computer (PC), a television (TV), and a Set-Top Box (STB). Communication between and amongst such multi-media devices is by means of a wired medium interface circuit at each multi-media device (or node) with the wired medium interface circuits being operative to communicate data from node to node over an appropriate wired medium. The medium interface circuit may be operative to transmit and receive data over one or more of power lines, telephone lines and coaxial cables.
WiFi communications is finding widespread use in residential and commercial environments. Providing for communication between and amongst nodes in a communications network over a wired medium and by WiFi can be beneficial in respect of providing for improved coverage, ubiquity and reliability. Furthermore, channel conditions between two nodes can vary, for example in terms of attenuation, noise and group delay. Hence, it may be difficult to guarantee a high level of channel capacity on a particular medium. Using wired and WiFi communication in a network can minimize the effects of channel variation.
An approach to providing a network having wired and WiFi communication is combining a wired medium interface circuit with a WiFi transceiver at each network node. However, WiFi specifications impose a limit on the number of MAC addresses that a WiFi transceiver can support. More specifically and at present, a WiFi transceiver supports one MAC address. The present inventors have appreciated that if two or more devices are connected to a network node, for example at its Ethernet interface, the connected devices are not independently visible to the rest of the network when communication is by WiFi. For example, if a node in a network is connected by an Ethernet switch to a Personal Computer (PC) and a printer and data is received over the network by a WiFi transceiver at the node, the single MAC address means that the node is unable to determine whether the data is intended for the PC or the printer.